Ask a Local: What the F*ck Just Happened in Wisconsin?

Out here in the little region of blue states that we call home (and out west in the giant blue state that we sometimes vacation to) it can be hard to get a handle on what’s going on in The Middle. Today’s a good example of that, as we dig through the fallout of the Wisconsin recall election, which Scott Walker inexplicably won last night. What in God’s name happened over there?

That’s a heavy question, and it deserves a two-part answer. The first part is easy: People have no problem voting against their own interests. That’s the mildly condescending explanation, anyway. The second part is more complicated: If the point of having an election every four years is to make a decision on whether or not a politician should stay in office, how important (and necessary) is it to spend the state’s money to speed that up by a couple of years?

From our vantage point, it seems excessively necessary. Scott Walker is a union buster. Scott Walker is a rent boy for billionaires. Scott Walker supports legislation that is blatantly homophobic. Scott Walker never even finished college. College! We have the reasons down pat. It’s all pretty compelling.

But ours are not the opinions that matter. And it’s worth noting that 200,000 more people voted for Walker last night than in 2010, when he was elected. He didn’t just re-win; he won by more. So what of the majority opinion then? And not the Wall Street Journal’s Beltway Idiot take on things. Or an op-ed by a party-line toeing politician. What about the people who actually thought deeply about this, made a decision, and then went and voted—for Walker. Let’s hear from them. In fact, I happen to know some of them. So I tracked down three of the smartest conservatives I went to high school with. I had a simple question: Why would you want to be represented by that guy?

"I was impressed with Walker from the beginning," wrote Nathan Garrett, who I recall used to hand out communist newsletters in the cafeteria at lunchtime. "But I did hesitate in voting for him in the recall election. Excluding police and firefighters from the restraints put on other public sector unions reeked of partisanship and his challenge of the State’s domestic partnership registry gave me serious pause."

He went on: "Ultimately, my vote came down to the recall itself. It was absurd. I can understand the frustration of those on the Left, an unchecked Statehouse, a majority with no reason to reach a consensus with the other side of the aisle. But a recall, really? What a waste of time and resources, of the public’s patience. My vote was for Walker inasmuch as it was a vote against the recall."

Nathan, now a sommelier living in Milwaukee, has a point. A recall isn’t really an election about who’s better: it’s a referendum to decide whether someone should have to forfeit their remaining years in office. And Nathan’s not alone: sixty percent of Wisconsin voters said yesterday that recall elections are only appropriate for official misconduct, according to early CBS News exit polls.

Dave Scotch, who I used to get high with in our friend Pat’s car when we were 16, agreed. "I guess I don’t feel as if the recall is really that valid," Dave wrote. "Don’t get me wrong, I know that it is. But the recall is 100% because Walker went after the unions; I don’t think anyone is denying that. This isn’t happening because someone’s staff did something illegal, or because someone lied under oath to Congress; this happened because a majority elected government acted on campaign promises, and the minority is a sore loser." To this I’ll add that Walker’s campaign promises have been a source of some disagreement. "Walker had campaigned on a platform of tax cuts and budget cuts, but he had never mentioned collective bargaining," according to the New Yorker’s well-reported piece on the recall effort. Some could call this is a failure of specificity.

Dave, who lives in Appleton and manages a restaurant, also took issue with the challenger. "Barrett insisted on explaining his platform every time he opened his mouth as ’I’m not Scott Walker.’ As for what Barrett could do for the state; I love Milwaukee. It is a beautiful city, a fun city, an energetic city. [But] there is no way we would send my son to Milwaukee Public Schools." Hold on, he’s getting there: "It is interesting that Walker is accused of attacking the schools, and the solution is the mayor of what has to be in the top 10 worst education systems in the US." (This is hard to rank, exactly, but by some accounts, Milwaukee has three in the bottom 25.)

Also, Dave’s point on Tom Barrett’s campaign is a good one. Another friend, who I used to spar with in AP Con Law, added "Even Barrett used Walker’s collective bargaining reforms to save the Milwaukee area school district millions."

This third friend (who didn’t want to be named) is a former economic consultant about to head to graduate school. He went on: "Another huge disconnect was the way Barrett didn’t even mention the collective bargaining reforms in his 2012 recall campaign. It was like a free do-over election, which I don’t think is the purpose of a recall. We have four-year terms for governor for a reason. The fact that the main issue that inspired the recall was hardly even addressed by Barrett’s campaign made a mockery of the recall laws and turned a lot of people who otherwise might have been on the fence towards the incumbent."

It’s easy to look at this election as some kind of harbinger for fall, but that’s a pretty decontextualized opinion. Barrett didn’t lose because he was a Democrat in a right-leaning swing sate; he lost because he couldn’t convince these three guys that elections should take place more than once every four years. Which—agree or disagree with Walker’s terrible policies—kind of makes sense. Even on the East Coast. Guys, I owe all of you a bottle of Spotted Cow.

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